Dothraki, for the uninitiated, is the fictional language developed by the (real) Language Creation Society for a warrior tribe of the same name in HBO’s world-wide hit television series Game of Thrones.

The Prime Minister’s “addiction” to the fantasy series was revealed on Monday in a Guardian Australia interview in which she said she was “barracking for” the khaleesi – the title of the Dothraki female warrior queen, Daenerys Targaryen, who rules her people with the aid of a couple of dragons. (The Prime minister conceded that in the real world of Australian politics dragons could sometimes come in handy.)

But that was just the start of it.

Twitter was quickly full of the Prime Minister’s newly-revealed addiction, with a Perth fan enthusing: "Julia Gillard confirms she is addicted to Game of Thrones. ONE OF US! ONE OF US!". (A more cynical voter might have replied Hash yer asti k’athijilari? – Are you speaking truthfully?)

Twitter was already busy casting members of parliament as characters at #GOTparliament – a game that was fun, but filled with potential for libel given the show's fondness for murderers, rapists or practitioners of incest.

It's fun, of course – but what’s the Prime Minister doing here? Well behind in the polls, with a restless caucus and an election campaign to plan, she presumably has a few things to do other than learn the fictional language of the mother of dragons.

Perhaps it’s not so much Dothraki as GOT fandom she is counting on to deliver her and voters a common language. And she’d be by no means the first leader to have tried that tactic.

It’s unclear whether German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also trying to tap into the German zeitgeist when she revealed her passion for the (very) long-running British television drama Midsomer Murders (Inspector Barnaby as it is known in German) or whether she really does inexplicably like it.

In any event Gillard’s genuine enthusiasm for GOT delivers her a handily apolitical topic on which to strike up a new conversation.